


because they're america's dream couple

by weaslayyy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: 3x02 AU: Jake is going to take the Vulture's demotion





	because they're america's dream couple

Holt doesn’t save their asses. No one does, because sometimes things don’t work out, and people have to choose between their dream job and their dream girl.

Jake looks at Amy, looks at the hair she’s pulled back into a bun, looks at the way she wears the uniform, looks at the panic diffused across the features of her face, and makes his choice. 

“I’m going to take the demotion,” he says vaguely, glancing around at the bullpen he’s lived in for the past ten years, his first, best home. He turns to the desk he’s standing next to, and starts grabbing his toys, his rubix cube, the old bottle of grape juice he’s kept in the drawer with the candy. Amy gasps, trying to cover his hands as they push sandwich crumbs into the garbage can, but Jake won’t stop. Or more, it’s that he  _ can’t  _ stop, because if he pauses at all he’ll have to think about the consequences, and he really doesn’t want to do that right now. 

“Jake,” he hears over the rushing in his ears, “Jake, _please_. Please let’s just talk about this. Please, Jake.” 

He looks up, and the first thing he notices is the sheen coating Amy’s eyes, making them glisten and glitter under the fluorescent lights he remembers them two putting in that week McGinley hadn’t sorted his recyclables, and Mean Margie had the electricians go on strike.

(Proper lighting is imperative when trying to solve a case, Peralta. Also, the box says that these eco-friendly bulbs are “easy to install.”) 

Amy’s lips have started to tremble faintly, just as her jaw clenches. Suddenly, all Jake wants to do is leave -- walk out of the precinct with Amy and maybe never come back. Okay, come back in a few months, when the Vulture has been fired for sexual harassment and gross misuse of office supplies. He sighs, closing his eyes for a minute and trying to organize his scattered brain into something kind of resembling a line. 

_ Home _ , it says.  _ Amy. _

So he grabs his keys, pockets the rubix cube and holds out his hand. 

“We will,” Jake says in a low voice, “but can we home?” 

It takes a moment, a long, agonizing moment where Amy has to look away and bite her lip before deciding to lace her fingers with his and nodding. They don’t look back as they step into the elevator, but they also don’t look at each other as the elevator takes them to the ground level and the doors open. 

They have to let go when they get to the car, but Amy just shifts her hand to cover his right thigh as Jake merges on to the street. He turns his head to smile, but she’s leaned against the window, eyes closed. 

Time passes slowly, fluidly. The radio turns on, and Amy flips through stations with the hand that isn’t grounding Jake on earth.

By the time they walk into his apartment, the silence between them has soured into something heavy and thick, clogging up their throats as it slips down into their stomachs. Jake tries to open his mouth a few times, but decides that it might be easier if he can just get out of these clothes, slip off the markers of Detective (Officer) Peralta, and just be Jake for a while. They walk into his bedroom, and Amy takes off her uniform in tandem, standing on her tiptoes to reach a pair of leggings and the college t-shirt she’d stored at Jake’s house about a year after they’d met. 

She has a toothbrush, Jake realizes suddenly. A toothbrush, a pair of pyjamas and a pantsuit she keeps hanging at the far end of his closet. Jake knows that she prefers black coffee on the mornings she wakes up on his couch, but adds some milk and three sugars on the few days she’s woken up in his bed. He records episodes of House Hunters International when he knows she’s on a stakeout without him, keeps a tab on the latest developments in Japanese stationery, and once spent an entire afternoon trying to pick out a pair of sensible work heels, to replace the ones he’d split Gatorade on.  

(He hadn’t even needed to ask for her shoe size.) 

Sometimes, Jake feels like he’s been waiting his entire life to date Amy Santiago, all these years living inside each other’s pockets training them both to be each other’s perfect match. He never told her, but Amy kept him sane all those months with the Ianuccis, the memory of her reminding him that he wasn’t actually a dirty cop, that he was more and better and  _ hers _ . 

Amy interrupts his train of thought by slipping her hand into his and pulling, slightly, in the general direction of the bed. They both climb into his bed, and Jake watches in amusement as Amy immediately gets underneath all the covers, grabbing the comforter up across her shoulders as she sits against the headboard. They turn towards each other, crossing their legs and touching knees, as they try to figure out how to start talking.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” Amy says eventually, quietly, not meeting his eyes. 

Jake’s lips turn up, as he scoots impossibly closer. “I kind of want to, but--” A thought. “Do you not want--”

“No!” Amy interrupts, looking directly into his eyes for the first time since they walked into his apartment, cover falling down as she reaches to grab his hands. “Of course I want to be with you.” She sighs, talking to their fingers as she rubs her thumb against the back of his hand. “I’m not worth...I don’t want you to regret me.”

Jake smiles, the corners of his lips turning slowly as he moves his hands up to her cheeks. “Amy Santiago,” he sighs, the sound coming from a place in between his ribs, the exact spot that has ached since Jake won their bet and sat with Amy on top of a building instead of calling for relief. “I don’t think I could ever regret you.” 

“You don’t know that!” She says, and her pitch is climbing as she fights to look away. “You could wake up in a few weeks and hate me and want your job back and you won’t be able to get it back and then you’ll hate me some more and--”

Jake leans in, and kisses her on the forehead, breathing in the scent of her hair. He used to dream about this when he was undercover, used to wake up from dreams where he imagined Amy warm, and soft and smelling like the strawberries of her favorite shampoo. “No,” Jake says, quiet and certain. 

“You can’t just say ‘no’ Jake, it’s completely possib--”

“No.” Jake laughs for the first time in hours, crashing down on the bed and bringing her with him. He gathers Amy in his arms, tucking her head underneath his chin and closing his eyes. 

“Amy, I can’t promise that we’re gonna work out, but I can definitely promise that I’m not going to blame you if we don’t.” He pauses, gathers his next breath from the curl of his toes. “You’re my partner, and I think we could be really good together, and I sure as hell don’t want the  _ Vulture  _ to get in the way of us maybe having a future, you know?” 

“But Jake, your dream job,” she mumbles into his collarbone. 

Jake swallows, because yes, his dream job. But, there’s always a silver lining, even if it’s just to make Amy feel better. “Not much of a dream job if I have to listen to the  _ Vulture. _ ”

Amy laughs, just like he knew she would. There’s just one more thing Jake needs to clear up between them. He shifts lower so that their eyes are level, and brushes a strand of hair behind her left ear. 

“Hey, Ames, can you promise me something?” She bites her lip for a moment, considering, before she nods her head, nose brushing his. “I know....” He breaks off, because he isn’t quite sure how to say this, these convoluted intertwining ideas that he needs her to understand before they do this for realz. 

He tries again. “I’m going to get frustrated, probably.” She nods again, smiling faintly. “You will too, because I’ll probably whine a ton. But...” Jake swallows. “But I need you to promise me that you won’t try to break up because you’re guilty or anything, okay?” 

Amy’s eyes are wide, and suddenly Jake feels like an idiot. “Not...you can totally break up with me if I’m horrible, or even if I whine too much because like you should never feel pressured to be with someone who isn’t making you happy, and like if the issue is that we’re not working out that’s totally okay and everything, but..” He takes a breath, heart racing. “I...know you, and I just get the feeling that you might try to like, break up if you feel bad or just want everything to go back to normal or--” 

Amy kisses him, hands sliding into his hair as her lips move against his. She kisses and kisses and kisses the entire speech from his mouth, and then kisses him some more for good measure. When they separate, she kisses him one last time on the cheek, right underneath his eye, before leaning back. 

“I promise,” she whispers, and suddenly it's like everything is back in color, the entire universe snapping right into its proper place. 

They’re really doing this. 

“We really  _ are _ doing this,” Amy echoes, smirking as she takes off her shirt. Jake smiles -- he'd dreamed of this, too.

It’s the last thing they either of them says for a while. 

***

At three in the morning, Jake wakes up with a start, gasping against the crush of the air clogging up his lungs. There was a dream, he remembers, but not much else. He glances at Amy next to him, back towards him as she shifts in her sleep.

He gets out of bed, grabbing his phone as he crouches in the far corner of the room, knowing that he won’t be able to fall asleep for an hour or two. Amy hums, softly, turning as the sheets pool at her hips. Jake walks silently, pulling them back up to her shoulders. He turns on his phone, and notices a message from Gina, a picture of Scully sobbing at Jake’s speech at Shaw’s. 

Gina. He should probably tell her about the demotion thing, if she doesn’t already know. He clicks on their message thread and types something simple.

_ Lmao vulture demoted me bc i didnt want 2 dump amy im a beat cop nw _

He presses send and waits. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, he has a response.

_ W a t _

Suddenly, her picture pops up, and....calling isn’t really Gina’s style anymore, but apparently, she thinks this situation is beyond text. Jake presses answer, ducking out of the apartment so that Gina’s screeches don’t wake up Amy. 

“I leave for one week and you’ve already lost your job?” Gina’s surprisingly quiet, her tone even over the phone. “Oh, honey.” 

Jake rolls his eyes. “It was us or the job, and....”

“You’re a Disney Princess. We all knew that, boo.” 

“I’m not--ok well maybe I am here, but I meant it, you know?” 

“For Ames?” Gina pauses, heaving a long, appropriately melodramatic sigh. “You’re such a B level rom com. Boring af, Jacob.” 

Jake blinks. “Are you the one that taught that to Terry? You know he thinks it means ‘as Fraiser’ right.” 

“You say that like I know what Fraiser is, girl. I’m beautiful and desirable, remember?” 

“Come on, G. We used to watch Fraiser all the time at Nana’s.” 

Gina’s silence, Jake decides, is enough of a response. 

“You think she’s the one?” she asks after a bit. 

Jake’s breath catches in his throat, and all he can think of is Amy, snuffling in her sleep with the sheets pooled around her hips. 

Jake wants this, all of these moments of domesticity, wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything before. He wants her drool on the bed-sheets and the tumble of her hair against the pillowcases, wants the soft sounds of her breathing to echo against the walls. He wants to wake up and count the eyelashes spread against the hollows under her eyes, and fall asleep to another one of her childhood stories, the ones about her ginormous family that never seem quite real to a guy that grew up with just a Mom a Nana and a Gina. 

“I don’t know,” he says, and the sound of his voice sounds distant, amongst the infinite amount of futures he can see in his mind’s eye. “But I think I want to find out.” 

***

A few hours later, Jake wakes up to the sound of one of his two metal spoons rasping against the styrofoam bowls he keeps to eat cereal in. He turns to his side, opening his eyes against the fabric of Amy’s leggings underneath the bowl she’s eating from as she sits against his headboard.

“Hey,” he hums, nuzzling Amy’s thigh with a sleep smile. She swallows the mouthful of cornflakes she’d brought over four days ago and smiles. 

“You bought milk,” she says, bringing her hand to his hair. 

“Low-fat, non GMO just like you wanted.” He sits up, raising his arm when she moves to rest her head against his collarbone. 

There’s a mug of coffee on the table next to her side of the bed, he notices, and Amy hands it over when she sees him looking. Milk and two sugars, which means she’s relatively happy, and doesn’t feel the need for an extreme jolt of caffeine.  

“What do you want to do today?” she asks while he sips, before launching into what is obviously a rehearsed monologue. “Because I think we should make a battle plan, you know for getting back to detective. Obviously, you’ve already passed the test, so you don’t have to worry about that which is good, so all you’ll have to do is create a portfolio of some cases that you can solve which should also be easy because you’re the best detec--” 

Jake kisses her, tastes the milk and earnestness on her mouth, and kisses her once more just because he can. 

“Jake! I’m seriou--” 

He kisses her again. It’s the Saturday after he’s been demoted, the sun is shining and Amy Santiago is eating cornflakes in his bed. 

“You know what I want to do, Ames?” She tilts her head, eating another spoonful of cereal. “Nothing!”

Amy blinks. “Nothing?” She asks warily, forming every letter slowly, as if she’s testing out how it sounds for the first time. 

He nods, grinning at her confusion. “Absolutely nothing! No battleplans, no work, nothing but you and me and whatever we feel like doing until we have to go back to the 99.” 

Amy exhales, rolling her eyes and shifting her shoulders out of their ramrod position. “So something, as long as it isn’t work.” 

“Now you’re getting it!” 

She brings the bowl up to her lips, tipping back the last of the milk and wiping the mustache off on her hand. Jake hands her the last of the coffee with a smile, and she kisses him on the cheek before finishing that off too. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to plan?” Amy places the mug and the bowl on the side table before turning to face him directly, grabbing his hand. “I know you want your job back, and we can make sure you’ll get back to the bullpen as soon as possible.” 

Jake’s about to respond, when he realizes that he’ll have to give her a better reply than “I’m not feeling it.” The thing is, Jake remembers his parents’ divorce, especially how it seemed like every little thing used to set them off near the end, how frustrated everything was. Starting a relationship off with his demotion is the type of situation that could cause  _ marriages  _ to fall apart, much less your average six day relationship. 

He hopes they’ll be okay, but....if this is all they get before the Vulture manages to ruin everything, Jake wants them to be the kind of days he can string on a necklace and wear underneath his uniform. 

Ugh. He’d almost forgotten about the uniform. He’ll have to remember where he threw it, the day after he made Detective. 

“I kinda want two days, to forget,” he says focusing on the patch of wall behind her left ear, “Before everything gets...” 

Amy’s eyes soften as her entire body seems to deflate. “That makes sense,” she says softly, biting her lip. 

She’s starting to look guilty again, which is pretty much the opposite of what Jake wants. He exhales, shifting his weight so that he can fall right into her, both of them collapsing onto the bed. Amy looks up at him, from her place underneath his body and quirks an eyebrow.

The sun is shining, Amy Santiago is in his bed, and neither of them have plans to do anything but each other for the next two days.

“ _Hey_ ,” Jake says before belting out, “ _I really really really really like youuuu--_ ” 

Amy laughs, chest heaving as she flips him over. He always knew she liked Carly Rae. He smirks before continuing the refrain: “ _And I want you, do you want me, do you want me too?_ ” 

Jake leans up to kiss her, everything about her: eyes shining and hair tumbling and smile bright enough to heat his apartment on the months he doesn’t pay his bill, when suddenly, inexplicably, she jumps off. 

“ _Ohhh_ ," she shouts, and Jake's eyes widen with glee. _"Did I say too much, I'm so in my head, when we’re out of touch!_ ” 

Jake blinks, brain not quite catching up as he sits up again, bringing his legs over the side and standing. Amy grins at his dumbfounded expression, giving him a quick kiss and gathering the mug and bowl, washing them as she waits for him to join in the chorus again. 

There’s a part of Jake that thinks he could gladly give up being a detective again, if it meant he could feel this happy for the rest of his life. 

“I knew you liked Carly Rae Jepsen,” he calls out in triumph, jumping out of bed. “You can’t possibly resist the soul thumping chorus of ‘Call Me Maybe!’” 

Amy throws her hands up. “It’s just so catchy, I couldn’t resist!”

“That’s why I didn’t even try,” Jake laughs, kissing her on the corner of her lips as he takes the mug from her hands and places it in the cupboard above her head. 

“I really really really really like youuuu--” they sing twirling and giggling together, shouts echoing against the walls of Jake’s apartment.

_ They’ll be fine _ , Jake whispers to the chorus of anxiety in the back of his mind, and for the first time, he thinks he can actually believe it.

***

Rosa knocks on Amy’s door exactly ten minutes late -- just enough time to show that she cares, but not too much. The door swings open immediately, and the first thing Rosa sees is the worry on Amy’s face, the panic around her eyes as Amy ushers Rosa into the apartment. 

“Santiago,” Rosa says, nodding her head. Amy walks to the couch and puts her head in her hands, shaking. 

“He’s getting demoted,” Amy says, and Rosa doesn’t know if she’s ever heard Amy sound so defeated. “He wants to stay together, and he’s not going to be a detective and...” 

Rosa takes a seat on the sofa a few inches away from Amy, moving one of the embroidered cushions to the side. Her head is spinning a little, but she can’t figure out whether she’s more worried for Jake or Amy. 

Jake, well he’s her best friend probably, her family absolutely. He’s giving up his dream,  _ their  _ dream, and she doesn’t know if she can stand working without him across the room. It’s been ten years since she’s had to work without him, and Rosa doesn’t know if she remembers how. 

Just the thought of it makes her feel a little sick. On the other hand, Rosa hasn’t seen Amy look this bad since Jake was undercover. Rosa chooses Amy, at least for now. 

“Santiago,” she says, moving to the floor in front of Amy. She gets on her knees, gently putting her hands on Amy’s shoulders, awkwardly maintaining a grip that’s strong enough to be supportive without bruising.

“Santiago you have to look at me. Breathe.” Amy looks up, hands clenching into fists at her knees. Rosa takes an exaggerated inhale and Amy follows, both of them holding their breath for seven seconds before exhaling, once, twice, thirteen times before Amy seems calm again. 

“Start at the beginning,” Rosa orders, because she still has no idea what’s going on. Amy nods. 

“The Vulture wants us to break up, and if we don’t he’s demoting Jake. Jake is taking the demotion.” 

It might be the shortest explanation Amy Santiago has ever given in her life, but Rosa notices that Amy’s hands have started shaking again, and moves to cover them with her own.

“Are you okay?”

Amy pauses, pressing her lips together. She takes a breath. “I can’t....” she starts, “I couldn’t...” 

“You wouldn’t take the demotion,” Rosa finishes. “You would have broken up with him.” 

Amy nods, gasping slightly. “It’s not that I don’t care, because I do! I like him so much, but--” 

Rosa gets off the floor, sitting on the couch next to Amy as she turns to face her. “You need to be Captain. Jake doesn’t.” Rosa looks down. “It’s okay, Santiago. You’re fine.” 

“I’m a terrible person,” Amy whispers, shuddering. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and her voice is being dragged from the insides of her lungs, ripped to shreds on the voyage out of her throat. “I’m a terrible, horrible person who doesn’t deserve--” 

Rosa hugs her for five entire seconds if only to get her to shut up. Amy squeaks after the third, because she knows how rare this is. When Rosa leans back, Amy’s eyes are wide and glistening, but she doesn’t seem to be quite so close to a nervous collapse. 

“What are we going to do?” Rosa asks hoping that Amy’s understood what the hug meant. Amy smiles slightly, showing that she has. 

“I don’t know,” Amy admits, “I just needed to talk to someone that might understand, and it couldn’t be Jake, and...” She breaks off. “Yeah.” 

“That’s...” Rosa has never been very good with emotions. “That’s fine. I’m....glad.” 

“Yeah?” 

Rosa nods, quick and short. Amy sighs, leaning back against the sofa and closing her eyes. Rosa watches her for a moment, before doing the same, spine still rigid as she reclined. 

“Wuntch is still in charge,” Amy whispers, “so we can’t do anything really bad to him.” 

Rosa hums in agreement, but imagines severing the Vulture’s dick and sticks it up his nose. “ _ You  _ can’t do anything bad,” she says, because everyone knows that Amy Santiago is going to be Captain, but Rosa Diaz has no such aspirations.

She’s a lot like Jake, in that way. It might not be so bad to be demoted with him, if she can find something worth having to put on the uniform again. Amy, like she’s reading Rosa’s mind, opens her eyes and shakes her head. 

“You love being a detective, Rosa. Jake doesn’t want you to give that up for the Vulture.” 

“I like working with Jake too,” Rosa says offhandedly, but looking at Amy’s shaking fingers has already made her decision. Rosa will stay a Detective, mainly because Jake will want her to look out for Amy. 

Besides,  _ someone  _ will have to make the Vulture pay, and it sure as hell won’t be Boyle. 

“It isn’t fair,” Amy gasps after another minute of silence, glaring miserably at the coffee table. 

“No,” Rosa agrees, “but you and Jake are gonna figure it out.” 

“But what if we don’t?” 

Rosa turns, staring. Amy’s shifted so that her back is towards Rosa, and her shoulders are taut under the fabric of her blouse. It’s been eight years since Detective Santiago walked into the bull-pen, regulation handshake for each of her new colleagues, eight years since Rosa felt the burden of representation roll off her shoulders -- no longer just the “woman” or the “Latina,” just....Rosa. 

“If you don’t, I’ll have your back. Jake’ll figure out a way to make detective, and you and I and Boyle will continue trying to make the Vulture’s life as horrible as he is.” 

Rosa pauses, taking a breath to collect the words she needs to say. 

“Do you think you won’t make it?” she asks, finally, because Rosa doesn’t think she’s ever seen two people so well suited. 

Amy looks up, a smile finally playing at the corners of her lips. 

“I certainly hope we will.” 

***

“Hey!” 

“Wassup, Ames?” 

“So...Rosa’s here, if that’s okay.” Amy sounds tentative. “I invited her a little earlier so that we could talk about...” 

Jake cuts her off, before she can start worrying about things that don’t exist. “That’s fine, Amy. Did she help?” 

He knows her, after all. 

She sounds sheepish when she replies. “Yeah. She’s getting a beer now and--” 

“Tell Peralta to grab some more while he’s out!” Rosa voice cuts through, and Jake laughs, because he’d almost forgot that he still gets to have this.

“I’ll pick up a six pack before I come back, and maybe some of that weird kombucha for Charles. They’re coming at like 8, right?”

“Mhm,” Amy sounds a little distracted, so Rosa must have done something, like put her beer bottle on the coffee table without using one of the coasters Amy bought him three years ago. “He likes the plain ones, without any of the flavors. Thinks they ‘pollute the sanctity of the kombucha.’”  

“Makes sense, I guess--” 

“Except kombucha is nasty? Yeah, I agree.” 

Jake laughs again, and has to swerve slightly to the left to avoid a jogger.  _ I love you _ , is almost on the tip of his tongue which would have scared him if he hadn’t already given up his job. 

There’s a feeling, almost an expansion in his chest that doesn’t leave any room for regret. Jake’s decided to call it love, mainly because he isn’t sure what else it might be. 

Amy could probably tell him: she has yearly physicals and everything. 

“I talked to Gina last night,” he says instead, because she should probably know that she isn’t the only one freaking out. 

“When?” Amy sounds relieved. 

“At like 3. I didn’t want to wake you, so I texted her outside. She told me I was a B grade rom com again.” 

“Huh. She texted me this morning about it but I just kind of assumed that she’d learned how to read minds. Good to know she’s still mortal.” 

“Ish”

“Ish,” Amy agrees. 

Jake passes an old couple, bickering gently as they walk hand in hand down the street.” 

The feeling expands

***

“Gina told you?”

“She directed me to an app called ‘Find My Friends’ that she apparently downloaded onto my phone without my knowledge.”

Jake shakes his head wryly as he studies the fraying edges of his shoelaces, groceries on the ground next to his right foot. “Sounds like Gina.”

“Indeed,” Holt says as he sits down on the bench. He cuts to the chase. “You’re taking the demotion.” 

If Jake is surprised at Holt’s knowledge, he doesn’t show it. “Yep.” 

Holt takes in a breath, holds it for two seconds and then exhales. He allowed himself to be demoted to PR in order to avoid his detectives being reassigned. This, is much, much worse. 

“For Santiago?” 

Jake clenches his jaw, turning to look Raymond straight in the eyes. “For me.” 

“She would not have--”

“Doesn’t matter. I did.” 

Raymond nods, trying not to be overwhelmed by guilt. He knows that there was nothing he could have done to prevent this, and yet...

And yet. “How can I help?” 

Jake’s shoulder loosen, and a small portion of Raymond’s guilt recedes, if only for this one moment. “I was never really good at being a beat cop,” Jake says, the words floating in the air between them.

Actually, this is something Raymond already knew. It was something he discovered early on in Peralta’s files, a note stating that as an Officer, Peralta gave too many warnings for his higher-ups’ taste. 

_ Good instincts, but a little....soft _

That note in Peralta’s file had been one of the only things that prevented Holt from transferring him out of the bullpen, the knowledge that for all Peralta resembled Holt’s past tormentors, he wasn’t. Not with that on his record.

Peralta takes the silence as an opportunity to elaborate. “I just...I never really..” He takes a breath. “It wasn’t fair, to give them all tickets that we all knew they couldn’t pay.” Peralta looks away. “I tried to help out, as much as I could get away with, you know?” 

Raymond smiles, or atleast, his lips turn up slightly. Jake turns back towards him, shoulders loosening slightly after he notices Ray’s expression. 

“If I’m going to be a beat cop, I want to be the best one I can be.” He shakes his head. “I mean--” 

“You plan on being a terrible officer,” Raymond completes, “but perhaps a good man, instead.” 

Jake colors faintly, biting his lip as he nods. Ray knows what Jake needs from him. 

He looks down at the fabric covering his knees, noticing a faint crease that wasn’t properly ironed. Raymond Holt might not be Captain of the Nine-Nine, and he might not have been able to save Jake’s position, but this -- this he knows he can do. 

“I have little political capital,” he says, soft, but as sincere as he’s ever been, “But enough. You won’t be fired on my watch.”

Jake smiles, for the first time since Raymond joined him on the bench and inexplicably, Raymond smiles back. It’s the lightest he’s felt in weeks.

****

“You’re  _ WHAT _ ?”

“Demoted, Sarge. Tomorrow I'll tell the Vulture.”

Amy closes her eyes, balling her hands into fists to hide the fact that they’re trembling. She isn’t even the one losing her job. Beside her, Jake is the picture of nonchalance, cool and casual if someone chose to disregard the rigidity of his shoulders. 

No one in this room would. 

“But... _ Jakey! _ ” Charles seems to have finally unfrozen. Jake holds up a hand, and Charles immediately tries to swallow his tongue. 

“The Vulture said it was either the relationship or the Job.” Jake deliberately tangles his fingers with Amy’s. “I chose the relationship.” 

Charles squeaks, overcome briefly with the romance of Jake’s decision. Rosa, sitting quietly on Amy’s left, smirks when he falls back in sheer euphoria. 

There’s a part of Amy that knows his usage of the word “relationship” is deliberate, that if Jake had said he’d chosen  _ Amy  _ over his badge, she would have lost it. That part of her is viciously, guilty glad that she’s finally with someone who understands, and that she won’t have to lose him. 

“So you’re letting him take your  _ badge _ ?” 

“It’s  _ romANTIC _ , Terry!” Charles, having regained the ability to form words, has now aligned himself firmly on the side of Jake and Amy. Or, more accurately, their future status as a “forever couple.” 

“And what, you’re just going to be a beat cop?” Terry looks apologetic, but continues nonetheless. “Look, y'all know that I love you both, and I'm glad that you're together, but is this really the best decision? You could break up for now--” 

“No.” Everybody turns, shocked that Rosa is the one who replied. 

Terry tries again but speaks directly to Rosa. “This can't be a good way to start a relationship, they can just kind of take a--” 

“Nope. They'll be fine, Sarge.”

Jake squeezes Amy's hand twice, and she remembers to breathe. 

Terry and Rosa stare at each other for a long moment, before Terry breaks off, holding his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. If you're sure then.” 

Jake looks at Amy, who shrugs. “We are,” he says. 

Charles fist bumps the air and topples over, unbalanced with glee. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote most of this in 2016 and this was supposed to be pt 1 of 3 that would go until the oolong slayer ep where jake and holt would still work on it in their downtime, solve it, and jake would get holt reinstated the same way, holt proceeding to immediately promote jake. there was going to be a plot thread about jake going back into the community, integrating with the uniforms, and also Amy as a lowkey anti-establishment (or at least anti vulture) figure for the first time in her life because she's so upset. also, she was going to walk in with jake every morning and give him a kiss before they split off to their separate floors but that is neither here nor there. i'm not sure if its any good but please please read and review!!!!! <3 <3 <3
> 
> also.... you can tell that i wrote it in early 2016 because they're singing carly rae jepsen but i kept it because its a good bop and true to the "time period"


End file.
